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The Hampden-Sydney Glee Club was established after the Civil War and has been an active student organization ever since. The first yearbook, The Kaleidoscope, published in 1894, depicts a strong organization sufficiently popular to charge admission to concerts - benefiting the Athletic Association, which paid the traveling expenses of visiting teams. The Glee and Mandolin Clubs performed frequently in Richmond at the Jefferson Hotel.
At the end of the 19th Century, even though a two-week Christmas vacation had become standard, as many as a third of the students remained at the College. There were many parties, concerts, and plays. The Hampden-Sydney Glee Club performed (sometimes presenting minstrel shows) as did the Hampden-Sydney Band (an unusual assembly of violins, flutes, flageolets, guitars, and bass viol), the Hampden-Sydney Quartet, the Mandolin Club, the Guitar Club, the Conservative Music Club, the Hampden-Sydney Musical Association (a choral group that specialized in serious music, often performing portions of oratorios), and the Hampden-Sydney orchestra.
The many musical clubs were only a few of the numerous extracurricular and social organizations characteristic of collegiate life one hundred years ago. Professor Whiting said in 1909 at the end of his second stint as Acting President:
"Poor work is almost necessarily the result of the custom prevailing among students of
maintaining all the activities and student organizations found in a large college.
The student publications - the Magazine and the annual -, the social organizations
- the Glee, mandolin, the Dramatic clubs -, the athletic aggregations - the Football,
Baseball, and Basketball teams - all claim the time, money and work of the students,
and the same student is often engaged in several of these outside activities. Hence
attendance is distracted from the real purpose of residence in college and classroom
work suffers."
Dr. Whiting's concerns did not diminish student enthusiasm for the Glee Club and other extracurricular and social organizations. In fact, extracurricular organizations continued to expand in number and variety until World War II. Social, as well as honorary, fraternities became prominent, and, although many of the old musical clubs died out, the Glee Club, subsidized by the College as a form of advertising and under good supervision, did well, often involving about a fourth of the approximately 400 students.
World War II brought hardship both for the College and the Glee Club. To try to keep the Glee Club going, Professor Carl Broman of Mary Baldwin College came once a week from Staunton, and then, whenever he could arrange it after he was drafted, from Camp Pickett.
In 1946, Professor T. Edward Crawley joined the English department and assumed the title of Director of Music, with responsibilities for both the Glee Club and the Chapel Choir, with such success that from 1948 to 1953 limited academic credit was granted for participation.
Beginning in this period and for twenty-five years, vocal music had its greatest flowering in the Glee Club, directed by Dr. Crawley. The Glee Club on average enrolled twenty percent of the student body, including some outstanding athletes. Its schedule was rigorous and its program ambitious, including joint programs with women's colleges and Christmas and Spring tours. For twenty years, a spring music festival at Hampden-Sydney featured professional soloists from Philadelphia and New York. Campus and community interest was such that the gymnasium would usually be filled for the performances. An LP recording was produced of their performance of a Corelli "Mass" and other pieces.
Several years before his death in 1984, Dr. Crawley resigned as director of the Glee Club, and in 1979 leadership passed to Cardon Burnham, who was hired as professor of fine arts and director of the Glee Club. Dr. Burnham introduced a costumed dinner production, A Colonial Evening at Table, which was a forerunner of the Madrigal Feaste.
In 1981, Dr. Burnham was replaced as professor of fine arts by Dr. James Kidd, who directed the Glee Club until 1993, with the exception of 1988-89, when Jonathan Green, now at Sweet Briar College, filled in during a sabbatical year. From 1994 to 1998, the College employed directors who were not full-time members of the faculty: John Liepold for three years and Thomas Williams for one.
In 1998, Lewis Worthington became professor of fine arts and conductor of the Glee Club. Mr. Worthington has devoted considerable effort to invigorating the Glee Club, renamed The Men's Chorus in 2002. Membership is nearly ten percent of the 1000-man student body. Joint concerts with Sweet Briar College and Salem College (N.C.) have been held, and the Glee Club again tours extensively. Mr. Worthington is also responsible for the creation of the Madrigal Feaste, a Renaissance Christmas pageant.
In January 2003, Thomas Williams, Associate Professor of Voice at Longwood University, accepted the position of conductor, pending the outcome of the search for Mr. Worthington's successor.
Charles Frank Archer '73 accepted the position of Visiting Associate Professor of Fine Arts beginning in the Fall of 2003. Mr. Archer has a B.A. from Hampden-Sydney College, an
M.M. from Westminster Choir College, and is
pursuing a Ph.D. in Liturgical Musicology at Drew University and a certificate in Liturgical Studies from the University of Notre Dame.
Historical information from On This Hill, A Narrative History of Hampden-Sydney College 1774-1994 by John L. Brinkley, College Historian.
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